speaker pods

All advantages/disadvantages of pods are discussed in other sections of
the website. This page describes building techniques.
Step 1: Car Preparation
Protect upholstery, carpet and panels by lining up with plastic and
masking tape. If any resin gets to a seat or carpet, there is no way
to get it out. Take the extra time to make sure any potential spill
won't cause damages to your car. Make sure you will not interfere
with clutch, hood release or other mechanical parts.
Step 2: Making a Mold (Back Piece)
If you are mounting the pod to a flat surface, such as a door panel,
then all you have to do is to make a template out of cardboard. Use
the template to transfer the contour of the area to a piece of
particleboard or MDF. This is the back of your pod.
If you are not lucky enough to have a flat surface to work with, you
need to make a fiberglass back piece. For example, let's say you
are building the pods to go in the corners of the floor, between the
firewall and kick panels:
Line the area to be molded with aluminum foil. This way, the
mat won't stick to your car or liner.
Cut a piece of fiberglass mat/cloth. It should be at least a
couple inches bigger than the final pod size.
You can either apply the resin to the mat with a paint brush,
or dip the mat in the resin.
Place the wet mat on the surface, let dry to hold shape.
If the mat won't stay, or sticks to your gloves, use a paint
brush. Sometimes masking or duct tape will help keeping
the mat in position for curing. Fine metal mesh or chicken
wire could help hold the fiberglass in place for curing when
building complicated shapes.
Let the piece cure. If once the piece has cured it is not hard
enough, you might need to add one or two more layers of
fiberglass. You can do this on a workbench. Remember, you
are only trying to get the shape here, the back piece does
not have to be rock-solid at this point.
You now have the back piece of your pod. Other options is to cover
a factory panel with cloth, add resin to the cloth for hardening, and
use the factory panel as part of your kick panel.
Step 3: Baffle (Front Piece) Fabrication
The best material to work with is MDF. If the enclosure is for low
energy applications (such as mids and tweeters), a couple layers
of 1/4" plywood would work.
With a jig saw, drill and router, you can build the baffle and mold it
to accommodate your speakers. Carefully plan the layout, speaker
mounting configuration and grilles.
Step 4: Speaker Positioning/Aiming
Once you have the baffle, connect wires to the speakers. Mount
the speaker(s) on the baffle. Using metal braces, pieces of wood,
etc, connect baffle and back part together to make a "skeleton".
Metal braces are sometimes better because it is easier to re-aim.
At this point, you don't care what it looks like. If you want, add
some cloth to create some kind of a box effect. Don't worry about
the back part of the speakers being semi-exposed.
Start by aiming each pod to the opposite side, at ear height. From
this starting point, play around with different aiming angles for best
results. If you are competing, make sure good results are achieved
from both front seats. If you don't care about passenger's side
much, optimize aiming at driver's side. This is the most important
part of the whole process, and may take weeks of critical listening
to get ideal angling. Keep in mind that at this stage you want to
optimize staging and imaging, not sound quality. The speakers will
sound a lot better once the pods are closed off.
Step 5: Joining the Baffle with the Mold
Once speakers are aimed for best sound, remove speakers from
baffle. Trim bottom part to desired size. There are different
techniques to shape and wrap baffle and mold. A lot of people
wrap the front and back "skeleton" with fleece cloth. Resin is
applied to the cloth and left to harden. This is good for concave
pods, but for rounded pods you might need to try a different
approach: Fill in areas with a material you can remove later such
as paper towels or foil. Apply first layer of fiberglass. It doesn't
have to be perfect, just cover the intended volume with no major
protrusions. Let it harden.
Several layers will need to be added afterwards. How many
depends on how hard you want the enclosure to be, and whether
you are using fiberglass mat or cloth (cloth is thinner).
Step 6: Smoothing the Pods
Once you have a nice strong surface, add auto body filler (i.e.
Bondo?) to round surface off. Let dry and sand. This process will
have to be repeated at least twice, depending on finish desired and
what you are using to cover up the pod. At the beginning, power
tools can be used for sanding, but last steps might require hand
sanding.

custom pannels
Most panels follow the same construction process, no matter what
materials you use: Making a template, building the frame (base), raising
(if necessary), filling, smoothing and covering the panel. For example if
you are making a door panel, you would first make a frame out of wood,
then round off the edges by filling them with Bondo and covering up the
whole thing with vinyl.
Step 1: Making a template
One of the easiest (and cheapest) methods is to use cardboard for
the template. For example, you are making a one-piece panel for
the trunk, that will go around a subwoofer and a couple of amps.
Cut a (straight) end of the cardboard box and place it next to an
amp. Keep cutting pieces of cardboard and gluing them with hot
melt over each other to make a big template consisting of glued
pieces of cardboard. This way, instead of figuring out the shape of
one big piece, you will have to figure out the contour of a small part
of the whole panel at a time.
Once you come up with a template, make sure you have no gaps. If
you have to bend the template to get it in and out, you will have
trouble with the final panel, since the panel will most likely not
bend. You might want to split the design in two or more panels.
Plan ahead of time what material you are going to use to cover up
the panel, and subtract the thickness of the material from the
panel. For example, if you are using vinyl, you might want to
reduce the outline of the panel by 1/8", but if you use carpet,
maybe 3/8" will work better.
Place the template over the material you are cutting. Trace the
outline with a pencil. Cut using a circular saw on the flat parts, and
a jigsaw on the curved parts. Use good saw blades to get smooth
cuts (this will save you some work later).
After the panel is cut, take it back to the car and make sure that it
fits, check that whatever material you are using to cover it up fits in
between the gaps. If you took the time making a good template,
then the panel should be a pretty good fit.
Step 2: Raising the panel
If you are making a flat panel, then go to step three, if not, keep reading. On this
panel we are making as an example, we are planning to raise edges around the
panel to outline the amps. Make a square "ring" around a hole and screw it to themain panel. Then, make another ring (this one smaller outside),
and screw it on top of the first ring. Keep going until you get to the
desired height and shape. (It is a lot easier to do various 1/4"
levels, rather than trying to shape one thick piece of wood. You
only have to get an approximate shape. The gaps will be filled on
the next step. Fiberglass can also be used here.
Step 3: Filling and smoothing out edges
On the previous panel, there are gaps in edges of the layers of
rings. Fill the gaps using a material such as Bondo. Try to get a
shape as close as possible to what you want. Once the filling
material is dry, sand the panel down. Additional layers might need
to be applied for a good finish.
If you are using a thin material to cover up the panel, such as vinyl
or grille cloth, then you need a very smooth surface. On the other
hand, if you are using carpet, or padded vinyl, then you don't have
to worry about sanding the panel down too much.
Step 4: Covering the panel
Most of the time, spray glue is the adhesive of choice. You can get
a can of 3M (or similar) spray adhesive at any hardware store for
about $10. Cut the covering material (i.e. vinyl) around the shape
of the panel, leaving at least a two-inch overlap. Place the covering
material upside down and spray the glue over it. Also spray the
panel. Let sit for about a minute, and place the panel on the
covering material, stretching the fabric over the panel. Use a clean
rag on the surface to make sure the whole top of the panel is in
contact with the fabric. Flip the panel over and spray glue on the
overlap, and edges of the panel. Cut the overlap as you go to fit
edges and corners. It is good practice to staple the fabric on the
underside, since glue will sometimes not hold very good when the
car gets hot.
Figure on your initial design how you are going to hold the panel.
You do not want to have screws messing up your panel's finish.
Pressure fitting requires a bit of skill, but is the cleanest way to go.
Materials
If you are using the panel just to cover up an install, the you don't
need a 3/4" particleboard panel, adding more weight to your car.
Plywood will do just fine. On the other hand, if you are building a
sub box, you don't want to use anything that will bend. Common
panel materials are particleboard, MDF, plywood, various metals,
Plexiglas and other plastics, even fiberglass.
To fill gaps and smooth out surfaces, you usually want a material
that will adhere to the panel extremely well, and will be hard. Most
installers use Bondo (car body filler), epoxy (for small fixes), and
fiberglass.
There are many materials used to cover up panels. The most
popular are carpet, vinyl, leather and various types of fabrics
ranging from speaker cloth to velour. You can also add padding
under the cover material.
There are many materials and finishes available. It just takes
practice to see what material is best for each application. Even
though there is no single way to build a panel, following the above
guidelines will give you an idea of the basic process. The rest you
will just have to figure out by trial and error. Even though whole
panels can be build using simple tools such as handsaws and
sandpaper, power tools will greatly reduce fabrication time,
especially when sanding.

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Sponsored By:
TREO ENGINEERING Sykotic Soundz

• 4 18" Treo CSX dual 2ohm subs
  
• Amps are undecided
  
• Pioneer Visual Audio
  
• Nintendo 64

they did a layout just like that one